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Community Thread's fourth annual Spring Into Service event is scheduled at several locations from 9 a.m.-noon Saturday, May 5. Volunteers are still needed to help. So far, over 275 volunteers will complete service projects at 16 local nonprofit organizations. Projects include painting, landscaping, tree planting, spring clean-up, gardening, office projects and more. Locations include Stillwater, Marine on St. Croix, White Bear Lake, Vadnais Heights, Hudson, Hastings and Cottage Grove.

The Croix Chordsmen" will perform a free concert at 2 p.m. on March 18, at The City Center Amphitheater in Woodbury, Minn. Four part harmony is a universal language of Barbershoppers everywhere. These men belong to an internationally recognized organization known as the Barbershop Harmony Society. Over 22,000 men from all ages and walks of life, claim this as their hobby. The Chordsmen welcome men who like to sing to sit in on their rehearsal at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, in Stillwater.

An Inver Grove Heights, Minn., man was seriously injured early Wednesday when the semi he was driving left I-94 and struck a disabled semi-rig which was parked along the eastbound freeway lanes. Jason B. Joerjan, 23, was transported to Luther Hospital with injuries described by the Wisconsin State Patrol as "life threatening". The driver of the second truck, Patrick F. McCarty, 58, of Roseville, was also transported to Luther but his injuries were apparently less serious. The Patrol said the crash occurred at 12:50 a.m.

The two Hudson boys who were subjects of an Amber Alert have been located. According to the Amber Alert information received, the boys have been found. The information was received here at 4:36 p.m. Follow up information will posted here when available.

I first encountered University of Wisconsin professor Jerry Apps' books on the non fiction shelf. He's written informatively about Wisconsin breweries, Wisconsin agriculture, Wisconsin barns -- 20 non-fiction books in all. Apps has now turned his attention to fiction. Last year, I reviewed his novel, "In a Pickle," which he derived from his on experiences as the manager of an old-fashioned pickle factory, the kind that used to dot the Wisconsin landscape. And now I've read his latest, "Blue Shadows Farm" (Terrace Books, $26.95).

It's fun to read real history written by someone with a flair for the narrative approach. Such a real history is "In the Valley of the Kings," by Daniel Meyerson (Ballantine Books, $26). Meyerson writes of Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who opened King Tut's tomb in Egypt back in 1922. What a discovery! Meyerson's account said that thanks to the media, the world went crazy over King Tut memorabilia and one overblown news item after another. Normally this would be a good thing for the man who worked for years to discover it. Not so.

If you grew up in the 1950s, you're going to love this book. If you didn't grow up in the 1950s, you better get hold of this book and learn that the 1950s wasn't the dull, Betty Crocker, suburbanite world that it is often portrayed as. Minneapolis lawyer and former city council member Paul Zerby -- like me -- reached adulthood in the 1950s and his first novel delineates that very strange time with warmth, gusto and an assured hand with the details of life back then. "Grass," (North Star Press of St.

Services were to be held Friday, April 3 in Superior for David Piggott, who served as executive director of the St. Croix County Economic Development Corp. for several years in the mid-1990's. Piggott died Saturday at University of Minnesota Fairview Medical Center in Minneapolis. He was 49. Piggott had most recently been working as director of a county-wide private development group in Faribault County for the past seven months. Piggott lived at Stillwater, Minn. and commuted to Blue Earth regularly.

I'm proud and happy to work for newspaper organizations who still believe it's important to publish news about books and the folks who write them. In the past few years I've gotten the impression that other newspapers consider books as little more than competition for their own readers' attention. Twenty years ago when I edited the Minneapolis Star Tribune book review section, most metropolitan dailies had respectable books pages that usually appeared on Sunday and were staffed with local editors who coordinated reviews by freelance writers from around the world.

The 20th annual Hudson Hot Air Affair is coming to Hudson Feb. 6-8. The "Roaring 20's" is the theme for this year's event, said balloon coordinator Carla Timmerman. M&I Bank--Hudson is again the major sponsor of the annual balloon rally and winter event and commissioned the commercial balloon banners for the occasion. The M&I balloon is owned and piloted by Dale Dommer, Ottumwa, Iowa, and the large blue and white M&I banners can be seen from both sides of the 110,000-cubic-foot Cameron envelope.